Love at First Squat

March 7, 2012

Dan Uyemura

"I couldn't even run a mile without horribly swollen knees before CrossFit. Now, I can actually run and my knees are fine."

 

In February 2011, Kristine Mariano wandered into LAX CrossFit not really sure what to make of the whole thing. She came in pretty much for one reason only – to shut her boyfriend up with all the incessant CrossFit talk at home.  

"It went from nothing but ‘Call of Duty’ talk to CrossFit talk – overnight,” she says. “I figured I'd give CrossFit a shot since it was better than sitting around the living room shooting computer people.”

Mariano, a 28-year-old elementary school teacher, had heard enough out of Christian Baltazar. Baltazar, her boyfriend at the time (more on this later), had similarly stumbled into LAX CrossFit just one month earlier having no clue what to expect. Within days, he was hooked and bringing home fresh servings of CrossFit love to Mariano nightly.

Skeptical, she came in for the two-week Fundamentals class. Mariano has had chronic knee issues for most of her life, and every exercise program she had tried failed her. A lover of all things active, it's been the Achilles heel of her sporting lifestyle and she'd grown to believe she just had to live with bad knees. "I couldn't even run a mile or play a game of beach volleyball without horribly swollen knees before CrossFit,” she says. "Now, I can actually run. I can run for miles or play all day and my knees are completely fine."

She would substitute every alternative under the sun for running in fear of a night-long date with bags of ice. Then one day, her coach urged Mariano to try running. Reluctantly she did. Within weeks, she was knocking out “Helen” with smiles. Today, she's an integral part of the box, on the LAX CrossFit Open competition team and an inspiration for new members and old coaches, alike.

Mariano, like many of us, isn't participating in the Open with any grand delusions of staring down Iceland Annie in July at the Home Depot Center. She's doing it for better reasons. To push herself to be the best she can be. To serve as a role model for new or timid CrossFitters, but perhaps most importantly - to be the World's Fittest Athlete in the Baltazar household.

So back to her and Baltazar. Why aren't they boyfriend and girlfriend any more? Happily, they are now engaged and coming down the home stretch to their wedding. This is something Mariano believes has 100 percent to do with her getting involved in CrossFit with her fiance. "I knew he was thinking about it, but once Christian and I started WODding together, the whole dynamic of our relationship changed. I really believe if I didn't give CrossFit a chance, we'd probably still only be dating right now."

To every athlete out there similar to Mariano in the Open, you’re proving every day that you don't need to be the best in the world to ask for the best of yourself. 

Kristine’s Open WOD 12.1 Result: 91 Burpees
Kristine’s Open WOD 12.2 Result: 49 Snatches